Comical Collaboration

In the education world, we are starting to see more and more technology in the hands of our students. Naturally, we start to see technology as a way to individualize learning and students can engage with material that is on their level.  But we can also choose to use our technology in a collaborative way. Collaboration helps our students learn to communicate effectively, learn how to cooperate with each other, build up those interpersonal skills, all the while, mastering the content given to them. And while our students use technology in their personal lives and it is mostly an isolated event, we as teachers can promote using technology in a collaborative, productive way.

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Kindergarten teacher at Meadowmere, Christina Phyall, decided to use the power of collaboration within her math lesson.  She wanted her students to be able to explain how to solve a math problem and decided to make it more engaging for her students by having them create their own comic with Make Beliefs Comix.  Mrs. Phyall started by modeling how to use this free website by making a comic with her whole class.  Then she took her little ones into the computer lab and called it a disaster! Her students had problems logging in to the computer and even getting to the website. This sparked the idea of having her big buddies, another third grade class at Meadowmere, come in and sit with their little buddies to help them out!  The third graders were asked not to do the work for their kindergarten buddies, but to help guide them through their assignment.  Mrs. Phyall reported that her students loved this assignment and loved working with their big buddy. Take a look at Angela K's finished comic and Kolten J's finished comic.

Whether or not we have a device for each student, don't be afraid to pair/group up students to work collaboratively on a project, assignment or activity. These collaboration skills are important life skills with or without the use of technology.

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Reflecting with SAMR

By Diane DeLaTorre